Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-01-14
What We Saw and Heard.

ea ior sport. In our ramblings about
town we met with :: goodly number of
items worth mentioning. Among the
Hrss thlngs we learned was that NO
one voted for Spears but scrubs and
scalaWagss, and consequently he could
not ind any one among his supporters
with sufficient wealth to justify as
| bondamen.
Bya great many questions, wearriv-
ed at the probable fact that the county
commissioners would allow Mr.. Sickler
20 qualify that day rruesday> about
noon. Learning this we determined
to spend the afternoon at the court
housei listen to the proceedings and
1 tatanotes On the. business done. n
When we arrived at the court house
Chairman Wilson was administering
the oath OF office to Louis Napoleon
Ioomis, who looked as sullen as a con-
demned criminal. Probably he was
mad because he had to swear to support
the CONSTITUTION of the United States
ana the act organizing the Territory
&c." The board then took up petit
ton from Franklin Tow nship asking
for township government. Messrs. Nc
Lean, Doctor and Brownell were sup
porting the petition. When asked
what they would do il the commission
ers refused to grant the petition, they
replied, 1.-The commissioners have no
choice in the matter they shall imme-
diately order an election, upon the petit
ton of majority Of the voters. Bnt
how are you going to compel them to
order an election if they refuse! "We
don't know; hadn't thought of that;
The fact Is you cannot compel the
commissioners to order an election
Judge Trip has decided in similar
case, one in which the commissioners
the sole judges of the facts, as they are
in this case, that he could not affect
their decision and the orly remedy
was in the election Of commissioners
that would do differently.
AS near as we can learn Messrs VII.
son and Knudtson are opposed to town.
ship government and MIR. Sickler in
favor of 1t. While Mr.. Sickler was
telling that his neighbors IN Hand
county, said their taxes were one halt
less under township government thar
before, Mr.. Loomis exhibited two tax
receipts from Brooklngs county, show
ing that the taxes on quarter section
under township government was nearly
$500 more, than IN the same quarter
the year previous, without township
government.
We thought of the minutes of the
previous day, and asked the clerk if WE
could make a copy. He said they had
not been read up and adopted and that
we ran our own risk, if we took them
then. But as we had no RISK to run
we simply copied the minutes yerba.
tim, and expressed our surprise that
Mr.. Sullivan should retire from the
board without approving, and signing
the minutes, as chairman. But that is
what he did and left the records incom-
plete. After short time the board
took recess (the minutes do not say
50 but then they did just the same,
while the chairman ana clerk attended
a meeting of the Agricultural Society
IN the treasurers office.
l,n;r +o Inns
sat watching the proceedings, ready to
make notes on what TRANSFERRED. There
weresome bills to be considered and we
hoped to be able to get a few facts and
figures. But we didn't. 1t happened
in this wise. The clerk would nand a
paper to chief knudtson, he would
trace the lines with his meerchum pipe
then pass it to Mr.. Sickler, who would
read and hand it to the chairman, and
before that functionary could have
time to peruse its contents a motion
would be made and seconded to allow
the bill or accept the proposition. The
chairman would put the motion, the
clerk would make the record, and a
man might just as well be in the moon
as there, so far as knowing of the bust
ness transacted, was concerned. Pre-
sumo il MIR. Jones should come be-
fore the board to oppose petition that
affected his interests, and said board
had decided to ignore his rights, they
would secretly dispose of the question,
right before his eyes, without any dis
cussiop, or even allowing Mr.. Jones the
privilege Of presenting his case. tihy
can't our board have the nora courage
to discuss questions in the presence Of
interested parties? The board refused
to allow Sheriff Spears % cts. each, tor
serving notices upon judges OF election.
4 Upon examining the law it became ap-
that he was entitled TO sc cts, each, anu
he accordingly put in . new bin for
double the amount refused. When the
!, board saw the new bill (of which they
make no record they allowed the old